Hi there,
Thanks for reaching out! I had a look at your situation with your father's martial arts business, and it's a classic problem for local businesses getting started with ads. It's completely understandable that you're finding it tricky to figure out what's working when you can't see the results clearly.
The good news is that fixing the tracking issue is relatively straightforward. The bad news, to be brutally honest, is that tracking is probably the least of your worries here. With a budget of just $10 a day and a high-value customer, your real challenge is going to be getting enough momentum to make any sort of impact without burning through cash with little to show for it. I'm happy to give you some initial thoughts and guidance on both the tracking problem and the wider strategy. We'll get the technical bit sorted, but then we need to talk about how to actually make that tiny budget work for you.
TLDR;
- Your main problem isn't tracking, it's your tiny budget and likely your offer. At $10/day, you're fighting an uphill battle against Facebook's algorithm, which needs data to learn.
- To fix tracking: Install the Meta Pixel on your website and create a 'Custom Conversion' that fires on the 'thank you' page after someone submits your contact form. This will show leads directly in your Ads Manager.
- The 'Contact Us' offer is weak and high-friction. You need something more compelling like a 'Free Trial Class' or a '7-Day Pass for $7' to get people in the door. The offer is everything.
- I know you hate them, but you should seriously reconsider Facebook Lead Ads. They are built for low-friction, mobile-first lead capture, which is exactly what you need on a small budget. Use a tool like Zapier to automate lead notifications via email or text to solve the CSV headache.
- This letter includes an interactive calculator to help you figure out what you can realistically afford to pay for a lead based on your customer value, and a flowchart demonstrating how a better offer reduces friction.
First things first, let's sort out your tracking problem...
You're right, flying blind is no way to run ads. You need to know if the money you're spending is actually bringing in enquiries. Sending people to a landing page is a perfectly fine strategy, but you've missed a critical step in the setup. You need to tell Facebook what a successful outcome looks like on your website.
This is done with something called the Meta Pixel. Think of it as a little snippet of code that acts as a bridge between your website and your Facebook Ads account. It watches what people do on your site after they've clicked your ad and reports it back to Facebook. Without it, Facebook only knows it sent someone to your site; it has no idea if they took any action, like filling out your form.
Installing it is usually quite simple, most website builders (like Wordpress, Squarespace, etc.) have a simple field where you just paste the Pixel ID from your Facebook Events Manager. Once that's done, the real magic happens.
You need to set up what's called a 'Custom Conversion'. This is where you define what a 'lead' is in your specific case. Here's how it works:
- Create a "Thank You" Page: After someone fills out and submits the contact form on your landing page, they shouldn't just see a little message saying "Thanks!". They should be redirected to a completely separate page, for example `yourwebsite.com/thank-you`. This page is critical because only people who have successfully submitted the form will ever see it.
- Create the Custom Conversion: In your Facebook Events Manager, you'll tell Facebook to create a new Custom Conversion. You'll set the rule for this conversion to be "Traffic to the URL containing '/thank-you'". You'll name this conversion something obvious, like "Contact Form Lead".
- Optimise Your Campaign for It: Now, when you set up your ad campaign, you'll choose 'Leads' or 'Conversions' as your objective, and you will select the "Contact Form Lead" event you just created as the specific conversion you want the algorithm to find for you.
And that's it. From that point on, Facebook will track every single person who clicks your ad and subsequently lands on that 'thank-you' page. It will report this as a 'Result' in your Ads Manager, and you'll see your exact Cost Per Lead. Your attribution problem is solved.
But tracking is only half the battle. Your budget is the real challenge...
Right, with the technical stuff out of the way, let's have a frank chat about that $10/day budget. In the world of paid advertising, that is an incredibly small amount to work with. The main reason this is a problem is because of how the Facebook algorithm learns.
When you launch a campaign, it enters a "learning phase". During this time, the algorithm is spending your money to figure out who, within your target audience, is most likely to take the action you want them to take (in your case, become a lead). To exit this phase and start performing efficiently, it generally needs about 50 conversions in a one-week period. Let's do some quick maths.
50 conversions a week means you need about 7 per day. If your cost per lead (CPL) was, say, $10, you'd need a budget of $70 per day just to give the algorithm a fighting chance. With your $10/day budget, you're only giving it enough room to get maybe one lead every day or two, if you're lucky. This means the campaign will likely be stuck in the 'Learning Limited' phase forever, never really optimising and likely delivering inconsistent, expensive results. Tbh it makes things much more diffcult.
I remember we’ve run ads for childcare services where the CPL was around $10 per signup. But we're also running a campaign for an HVAC company currently, they are in a bit of a competitive area, and they are seeing costs of around $60/lead. Martial arts could be anywhere in that range. Let's be optimistic and say you can achieve a $25 CPL. On a $300 monthly budget, you're looking at just 12 leads for the entire month. Is that enough to make a real difference to the business?
This isn't to say you should give up. It just means you have absolutely no room for error. Every part of your strategy—your targeting, your ad creative, and especially your offer—needs to be perfect. First, though, you need to understand the economics of your own business to know what you can even afford to spend.
Your offer is what actually gets people to sign up...
The single biggest reason I see campaigns fail, especially for local businesses, is a weak offer. "Fill out a contact form" is not an offer. It's a chore. It's high-friction, low-value, and gives the user no immediate reason to act. You're asking a busy parent, probably scrolling on their phone, to stop what they're doing and fill out a form to then wait for someone to maybe call them back. The drop-off rate will be huge.
You need to swap this for something that provides instant value and is incredibly easy to say "yes" to. Your offer's only job is to get them through the door. Once they are there, your father's expertise can do the selling. Your entire advertising strategy should be built around a compelling, low-friction "foot-in-the-door" offer.
What could this look like for a martial arts school?
- -> The Free Trial Class: This is the gold standard. It's a no-brainer. It's a direct experience of the product, costs them nothing but time, and is a powerful qualifier. Anyone who shows up for a free class is a warm lead.
- -> The Introductory Offer: Something like "Get Your First 4 Classes & a Uniform for just $49". It's a low-risk way for parents to test the waters without committing to a full membership. It gets a financial commitment upfront, meaning the lead quality is higher.
- -> A Lead Magnet: A downloadable guide like "5 Confidence-Building Exercises for Shy Kids" or a "Bully-Proofing Your Child Checklist". This captures their email address in exchange for valuable information, allowing you to nurture them into a trial class later. It's a softer approach but can build a valuable email list.
You have to remember what you're really selling. You're not selling karate chops and kicks. You're selling confidence, discipline, focus, and a safe place for kids. Your ads and your offer need to reflect that transformation. Let's take the "Free Trial Class" offer and apply the Before-After-Bridge framework to an ad:
Before: Your son comes home from school quiet, again. You're worried he's struggling to make friends or, worse, being picked on. You just want to see him smile and stand a little taller.
After: Imagine him beaming with pride after breaking his first board, surrounded by new friends who cheer him on. He's learning to be focused, respectful, and confident enough to handle any situation.
Bridge: That transformation starts with a single step. Claim a free, no-obligation trial class at [Father's Business Name] this week and see the difference for yourself. Tap 'Book Now' to reserve your spot.
See the difference? That speaks to a parent's real pain point. "Contact Us" doesn't.
You should reconsider Lead Ads... they might be your best bet
I know you said you found the CSV process and needing a CRM to be a pain, and you're not wrong. Manually downloading leads every day is inefficient and leads will go cold fast. But you may have thrown the baby out with the bathwater.
Facebook Lead Ads are, quite possibly, the most powerful tool for a local service business on a tight budget. Why? Because they are designed to eliminate friction. When a user clicks on a Lead Ad, a form opens up right there within the Facebook app. What's more, Facebook pre-fills their name, email, and phone number from their profile. All they have to do is tap "Submit". The entire process takes less than 10 seconds. Compare that to sending them to your website, waiting for it to load, finding the form, and manually typing in all there details.
The reduction in friction almost always leads to a higher conversion rate and, therefore, a lower Cost Per Lead. When you only have $10 to spend each day, getting your CPL down from $30 to $15 means you've just doubled your results. You can't afford to ignore that.
Now, for your problem with managing the leads. You don't need a complex CRM. There's a brilliant, simple tool called Zapier that can solve this for you in about 15 minutes. You can create a "Zap" (an automated workflow) that does this: "When a new lead is submitted on my Facebook Lead Form, automatically send an email containing the lead's information to myfather@email.com".
You can even have it send a text message to his phone. This completely removes the need to download CSV files. The leads arrive in his inbox or on his phone in real-time, allowing him to follow up immediately while they're still hot. A basic Zapier plan is very affordable and will pay for itself many times over in saved time and converted leads.
I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:
Putting this all together, here is a practical plan of action. This is the main advice I have for you to not only fix your tracking but to give your campaigns a much better chance of success. It's a series of steps that build on each other, moving from the technical foundation to the strategic execution.
| Area | My Recommendation | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| Tracking Setup | Install the Meta Pixel. Create a dedicated 'Thank You' page. Set up a Custom Conversion event for that page to track leads. | This is non-negotiable. It gives you clear data on campaign performance (leads and CPL) directly in Ads Manager, ending the guesswork. |
| The Offer | Ditch "Contact Us". Replace it with a low-friction, high-value offer like a "Free Trial Class" or a "Discounted Intro Package". | The offer is the #1 driver of performance. A compelling offer dramatically increases conversion rates, lowering your CPL and making your small budget go further. |
| Campaign Type | Strongly reconsider Facebook Lead Ads, using your new compelling offer as the hook. | They minimise friction by keeping users inside the app and pre-filling their data, which usually results in a lower CPL - critical for a small budget. |
| Lead Management | Use a tool like Zapier to automatically send new lead notifications from Facebook Lead Ads directly to an email address or as a text message. | This solves your main objection to Lead Ads. It makes the process seamless, eliminates manual work, and enables rapid follow-up, which is key to converting leads. |
| Targeting | Target a radius around the business address. Layer interests like 'Parenting', 'Family activities', and target parents with children in the relevant age group. | With a small audience, you need to be relevant. This focuses your budget on the people most likely to be interested: parents living nearby. |
| Budget | Understand the limitations of $10/day. Be prepared for slow progress and focus ruthlessly on getting the CPL as low as possible with a great offer. | Managing expectations is crucial. You won't get a flood of leads, but a hyper-efficient campaign can still deliver a positive return and prove the concept. |
I know this is a lot to take in, and it might seem more complicated than you first thought. The truth is that while anyone can boost a post, running paid ads profitably requires a solid strategy, especially when resources are tight. Getting the tracking right is the easy part; getting the offer, the ad creative, and the campaign structure right to make a tiny budget work is where the real expertise comes in.
You're trying to do a great thing for your father's business, and getting this right could make a real difference for him. Wasting even a small budget month after month can add up, whereas investing in getting the right strategy from the start can pay dividends for years.
If you'd like to go through this in more detail, we offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation where we can look at your specific situation and map out a more concrete plan. It might be helpful to have an expert pair of eyes on it before you spend any more money.
Hope this helps!
Regards,
Team @ Lukas Holschuh
